This makes him the perfect subject for red-hot biographer Alton Reece. Riding high on the wave of previous astonishing success, Reece sees Hughes as more than simply a name worth the seven-figure advance he's demanding from his publisher. He finds in Hughes a kindred spirit of greatness, a man misunderstood and beaten down by jealous inferiors. But even as Reece struggles to 'know' his subject, his own rapidly unravelling life keeps finding unexpected ways to intrude.
With a deft comic touch and an astounding narrative style, Steven Carter's novel creates a picture of a Hughes who might have been, a biographer who can't separate his subject from his own visions of grandeur, and a public that demands its heroes be larger than life - if only so they can be more easily torn down.